I started the day with a mysterious jail-break – the chickens were out before I let them out. Looks like I have some coop repair to do! Bad chickens!

I had a great ride on Emmy, threw six 110-lb hay bales from a truck into the barn, mucked the stall and prepared to race home to head out to Fort Flagler for the big annual group campout. I got a text, though, saying that due to the big storm coming through the boys’ friends were not going to go. I got an inspiration while mucking that we could just camp in our back 40. Got home, hatched the plan and engaged the boys in helping clear land to make room for the bigger tent. We had to expand our campsite from about 10×10 to 10×20. This entailed taking out a HUGE fern. Sam goes “This is a lot like Clash of Clans (game) but 25 times longer!”

An hour of back-breaking work later we had the land leveled off enough for boys to sleep on the ground in sleeping bags without too much discomfort. There were a few soft spots and one little dip in the ground, but not bad for leveling 140 sq ft by hand!

Nice view!

We were starving, so while we waited for campers to arrive we wolfed down Pirate Booty and the boys played Magic.

Soon we were heating up the chili Dave had made the night before on the new propane portable campfire (seated down in my fire pit). This is new friend, John, stirring the chili. Thank you!

Patricia made amazing blackberry crumble. It was seriously good – the best ever!

This is the view of the tent in the woods, boys finally settled into a game of Magic. They barely stopped their nerf war, hockey shootout, chasing games to eat, racing around howling like a pack of wolves. But around 9pm I gave a briefing to all 7 boys (5 Sam’s age, 2 Ben’s age) that it was time to chill a little. Handed out Trident to brush teeth (they loved that!) and headed back to the tent by lantern. Lest you think they followed direction seamlessly…I could hear the howls from far away as I gathered up stuff from around the campfire. There might possibly have been some pillow fights, some jumping around IN sleeping bags trying to knock each other down…I’m surprised the tent was still standing. I put the rain fly up at about 10pm in the dark, solo, in case it did rain…soooo glad I did!

I am not sure I slept at all…one of the boys likes to giggle randomly throughout the night, the others squirm and elbow, one talked all night long in his sleep, and there was much thrashing and squirming in general until 5am when the rains came. I texted the parents that all was well in case they worried about wind (I didn’t want kids out under trees in the wind, which didn’t come until the next day, thankfully).

Love percolator coffee! Big fan of my horse shoe trivet, too 😉

Sam making eggs for the gang. He loves to do this.

Everyone settling in for some eggs and biscuits – a brief time-out from a Nerf war spanning about a mile between homes.

The Band of Brothers marching home from a raid!

Thanks for this shot of the crew, David Kim! Great to see you for coffee! Boys – it was an honor and privilege to serve with you! Happy Camp Last Hurrah!